Understanding HP SIM's Federated Search Architecture

2
Introduction
Federated Search is a component of HP Systems Insight Manager (HP SIM). Federated Search
became available with the introduction of HP SIM 6.30 in April 2011. It enables concurrent multiple
Central Management Server (CMS) searches, such as static inventory data and installed software.
Prior to HP SIM 6.30, a single CMS performed searches for systems it managed such as servers,
switches, Online Administrators (OAs), and iLO management processors. When a company has
multiple CMSes, this limitation provides a fragmented view of companywide inventory. When large
enterprise companies have CMSes spread across multiple geographic locations, this limitation
becomes even more acute.
The Federated Search solves this problem. For the first time you can perform, from a central location,
real-time queries about systems managed by multiple CMSes.
This paper describes the Federated CMS architecture and explains how to configure a Federated
CMS to enable multiple CMS searches. It discusses setting up role-based authorizations and explains
how searches work across federated CMSes.
Federated CMS
To perform federated searches, you must set up a Federated CMS. The federation must consist of at
least two CMSes. The CMS you designate to configure the Federated CMS and perform searches is
the main CMS. In technologies such as clustering, this CMS is sometimes referred to as the master.
NOTE:
If your company has multiple CMSes, HP recommends that you set
up only one main CMS because the queries from multiple main
CMSes can affect network traffic.
The main CMS and all remote CMSes it will search must be running HP SIM 6.3 or later. The main
CMS accesses the remote CMSes through their respective HP SIM web service APIs. The search
occurs securely over HTTPS using the SOAP protocol. HP SIM contacts other CMSes over SOAP ports
50001 and 50002.
A Federated CMS is scalable. You can set it up in large enterprise companies with many CMSes in
multiple geographic locations. You can also set it up in small companies with as few as two CMSes.
Figure 1 illustrates a Federated CMS setup in a large enterprise company. The main CMS is located
in Houston. From Houston, you search systems managed by CMSes located in Hong Kong, New
York, and London.